Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
[Cross posted at TechFreedom.org] It’s hard to believe TechFreedom launched just last January. As we begin 2012, let me share with you the mantra that continues to guide our work: “Technology expands the capacity to choose; and it denies the potential of this revolution if we assume the Government is best positioned to make these [...]
On Friday, both Josh Wright and I spoke on a panel at the Michigan State University’s conference on “Governance of Social Media.” Our particular panel focused on emerging competition policy issues affecting social media and social networking sites. Also joining us on the panel were Nicolas Economides of NYU and Michael Altschul of the CTIA. [...]
At last Thursday’s FCC Open Commission Meeting, the Commission proposed to require television stations to make their “public inspection file” available online. But availability is not accessibility. If the FCC follows its usual practice of having filers submit PDFs (many of which are often scanned from printed documents), this data may be nearly useless to [...]
[Cross-posted at Reason.org] In the wake of the Department of Justice’s lawsuit to stop the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile USA, there has been some discussion about where T-Mobile would end up if the government effort proved successful. While debate continues whether a merged AT&T-T-Mobile would harm consumers, there is no disputing that T-Mobile itself [...]
Milton Mueller responded to my post Wednesday on the DOJ’s decision to halt the AT&T/T-Mobile merger by asserting that there was no evidence the merger would lead to “anything innovative and progressive” and claiming “[t]he spectrum argument fell apart months ago, as factual inquiries revealed that AT&T had more spectrum than Verizon and the mistakenly posted lawyer’s letter revealed [...]
[Cross posted at Truthonthemarket] As Josh noted, the DOJ filed a complaint today to block the merger. I’m sure we’ll have much, much more to say on the topic, but here are a few things that jump out at me from perusing the complaint: The DOJ distinguishes between the business (“Enterprise”) market and the consumer [...]
If you’ve been following Reason.com or Reason.tv for the past 48 hours you will know that Jim Epstein, a Reason TV reporter, was one of two journalists arrested Wednesday for videotaping a meeting of the Washington D.C. Taxi Commission. Epstein and Pete Tucker, who blogs for TheFightBack.org, a site that spotlights local D.C. issues that [...]
Last week the Senate Commerce Committee passed–with deep bi-partisan support–the Public Safety Spectrum and Wireless Innovation Act. The bill, co-sponsored by Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller and Ranking Member Kay Bailey Hutchison, is a comprehensive effort to resolve several long-standing stalemates and impending crises having to do with one of the most critical 21st century resources: [...]
This morning, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released its eagerly-awaited “Future of Media” report. The 475-page final report is entitled, “The Information Needs of Communities: The Changing Media Landscape in a Broadband Age.” [Here's a 2-page summary and the official press release.] The report is a bit overdue; the effort was supposed to be wrapped [...]
I’ve written two articles on the Protect IP Act of 2011, introduced last week by Sen. Leahy (D-Vt.). For CNET, I look at some of the key differences, better and worse, between Protect IP and its predecessor last year, known as COICA. On Forbes this morning, I have a long meditation on what Protect IP [...]
February 14, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
